Taylor, John McGuire

Memoir
Page 125

About ˝ an hour later we marched off. We had heard that we had 75 kls to do in 3 days so we had a big job on our hands.

The march is hard to describe - I have heard of streams of refugees blocking the roads but now I was one of them. All that night we marched in a S. Westerly direction with no stops of more than 5 min. At daybreak we reached the big Autobahn south of Sagan - crossed it & continued on. The German gaurds were just as tired as we were - the only thing to do was keep going. We eat when we could - & it was all frozen; it something that I'll never forget eating a sandwich of bully Beef all completely frozen! We passed through HALBAU in the morning at 8 o'clock but kept on going until about 1 ‘clock when we reached FREIBALDAU. We had walked about 28 kls by this time & naturally we were completely exhausted. It was still snowing & freezing cold. In this town the gaurds lost control & in no time we had corrupted the town with cigarettes - the German civilian only get 2 a day! We all started looking for billits - we however being at the back of the column were a bit left out. I was more interested in looking for a lavatory! Finally the authorities turned out the Army & rounded up & later that afternoon we were on the march again. We marched all through the afternoon & evening & when dark came we were completely exhausted. We finally stopped & they started billiting the boys down in barns. By some breakdown when the German Officer ran off & left us we were marched further & kept out of the snow until 9 o'clock when we finally got into a barn with 700 others! It was bitterly cold but there was hay & I managed to get a few hours sleep. There was one fellow near me who was just crying all night though cold & fatigue. Several men got frostbitten!

At 8 o clock we were all ready again & by 9 o'clock we were on the march again. We had done 36 kls the previous day. Well this day the 29th was much the same. We marched all day passing through PREIBUS. This day I had picked up
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